Sales and Marketing Performance Blog

The PBS Masterpiece Theatre period costume drama, Downton Abbey is a masterful example of visual storytelling, featuring superb British acting talent, staged in the magnificent Highclere Castle, (hailed as the best castle in England).
It's the best TV drama I have seen for a very long time and a welcome departure from the US election news; I'm a huge fan and recommend it to anyone interested in quality entertainment.

For those who have not yet seen Downton Abbey, Series 2 is playing on Masterpiece Theatre on Sunday evening in the US, on the PBS channels. 

Downton Abbey has enormous appeal across age groups from 10 years old to 100 and is being shown in 100 viewing territories. It is hugely popular in the US, UK and is the biggest television hit in Spain for 10 years.

Downton Abbey is a beautifully written and visually compelling story from a time of tremedous social upheaval, World War 1. The characters are fully developed; the aristocrats restrained and rule-bound by the mores of the era and the servants, subjugated by dutiful obedience. The superb grounds and the setting of Highclere is stunning.  

The essence of great storytelling is our ability to identify and connect with the aspirations and frustrations of the characters in the story as they confront their personal challenges. The tension and excitement in the struggle to overcome them as the story unfolds makes the next episode a compelling must-watch event and a reason for staying in on Sunday evenings.

How can we apply these lessons in selling?

John Kotter, Harvard Business School professor, and author of "Leading Change" who comments on the power of visual storytelling states, "Over the years I have become convinced that we-learn best-and change-from hearing stories that stike a chord within us. Those in leadership positions, who fail to grasp or use the power of stories, risk failure for their comanies and themselves".
Salespeople are leaders running their own business franchise and John Kotter's advice is highly relevant. 

Top Salespeople are Natural Storytellers

I'm currently working on a whiteboard story for a leading technology company and have received contributions from some of the sales and marketing stars in the company over the course of its development.

What struck me about a number of the salespeople and marketing team members is their use of story in discussing their products. 

• They use anecdotes and simple, yet powerful metaphors when talking about how their products are used. 
• Use cases come alive through examples that are relevant and compelling.
• They create tension in their discussion around the use of their products to differentiate themselves from the competition. 
• They have figured out how to tell their story naturally....without a script.

Bottling your Story

Our goal in creating Whiteboards is to capture and bottle the magic from the top performers and create a story around how the products are used to overcome problems with the status-quo and have everyone on the customer-facing team learn it and have fun telling it.

When the buyer is at the center of your story vs. your products and the story captures their current situation and their struggle, then you are well positioned to have your capabilities unfold naturally in conversation. 

Combining Visual Imagery and Story

The earliest evidence of Visual storytelling is 35,000 years ago in the paleolithic cave paintings in Chauvet Cave, South of France. With the advent of the slide projector and then PowerPoint, we forgot how to tell stories and let the bullets and slides do the talking.

The best presentations in sales communication successfully integrate simple images with product value-creation and weave a story around the buyer condition.

When we use whiteboards to tell our story vs. PowerPoint bullets, we use simple hand drawn images (that are immediately meaningful in the context of the discussion), interwoven into a story around issues that the buyer is potentially struggling to overcome.

In a WhiteboardSelling enablement symposium, everyone on the customer-facing team learns to draw the whiteboard and to tell their story and in half a day, they will have learned the story well enough to use it with prospective customers the next day...although they may be somewhat uncomfortable until they have mastered it.

There is massive difference in the level of cognition in the audience between an un-trained novices scrawled notes on a whiteboard and the whiteboard created by a person trained to present a visual story and to use icons to convey meaning.

Buyers will often remember a well constructed whiteboard story months after the interaction; scrawled notes on a whiteboard will not be stored in our brain in the same way a poor PowerPoint presentation is discarded from our memory.

Take-Aways:

1. The essence of selling is effective communication and the most effective communication uses simple visual images interwoven into a story.
2. For those who enjoy British humor, a spoof of Downton Abbey for last year's Red Nose Day charity fundraising event is hilarious. Links below. 
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5dMlXentLw 
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3YYo_5rxFE
3. PBS Interview with the producer and cast members
4. Learn more about the science behind WhiteboardSelling Enablement.

 

This HubSpot Review marks our third anniversary as a user of the HubSpot system for Inbound Marketing.

We had a record year last year, which we attribute to increasing inbound traffic more than 50% and doubling our average visit lead conversion rate. Our ROI on HubSpot license fees last year in terms of revenue directly attributable to our inbound marketing activity is more than 60:1

HubSpot Highlights

A lot of very positive stuff happened at HubSpot over the past year including;

• acquisition of Performable for behaviour-driven marketing communication
• acquisition of specialist social media company @oneforty 
• another successful funding round raising $32M from tier 1 VC firms including Sequoia, Google Ventures, Salesforce.com, 
• massive growth of new name customers, now numbering more than 6000
• more than 600 channels partners
• expanded employees to more 300
• the product has come on in leaps and bounds in speed, usability and quality. 
• launched Marketing Grader - a great tool for engaging prospects

Advanced Marketing Concepts Year 3 Highlights

We relocated to the US in late 2010 and our consulting business has generated very significant new business in the past year. We attribute this growth to three main factors (i.) relocation to the Bay Area of San Francisco, (ii) our partnership with WhiteboardSelling and (iii.) inbound leads from our HubSpot Inbound Marketing system that converted into customers.

• In 2012 we generated 466 Inbound Leads, a 250% increase in leads over 2011
• A record number of customer engagements, leading to a record revenue year.
• An ROI of more than 60:1 on our HubSpot subscription for engagements directly resulting from HubSpot Inbound leads

 

This Selling Early Adopters video was created following a joint Webinar with Dominic Rowsell, co-author of Why Killer Products Don't Sell. The original sound-track was unusable, so I captured the elements of that Webinar and added more meat into the following two-part, narrated whiteboard video.

Buying Behavior is dependent on Risk Tolerance

Early adopters of new technology are prepared to accept more risk when buying technology than the majority of buyers. Despite the success of SaaS as a concept and the wholesale adoption of cloud based applications, the vast majority of SaaS software fails to achieve commercial success because the innovation never makes it across the chasm from the early adopters into the early majority mainstream market. The consequent massive uptake of the SaaS innovation has eluded all but a small percentage of aspiring entrepreneurs.
The following Flash videos are a 2 part series and run about 7 minutes.

Part 1. The Four Buying Cultures and the Technology Adoption Life-Cycle.

This video introduces the four buying cultures and how they map onto the Technology Adoption Life-cycle. Will be of interest to sales and marketing professionals selling B2B technology solutions or professional services based engagements.

Challenger Sale Insights

This series may be of interest to readers of The Challenger Sale as it offers insight into buyer behavior and the process of getting your challenging idea through the buying process.

Part 2. The IMPACT buying cycle and engaging early adopters.

If you haven't read these three books yet, the good news is there is still time to read them and make an impact on sales and marketing performance in 2012. Welcome back to work and have a great 2012.

The Challenger Sale

This is an important book for B2B sales and marketing and will be of interest to sales and marketing leadership as well as sales professionals. The research in this book has uncovered new insights into what works in our current B2B buying climate and debunks a lot of commonly held views and practices. 

You are going to hear a lot about the Challenger style of selling in 2012 and beyond as it is the most effective mode of selling complex B2B products and services.

The good news is that Challenger Selling is a behaviour and skill-set that can be learned and with the appropriate messaging and whiteboarding skills, anyone who wants to, can achieve Challenger Sale results.
Here you can read a more in-depth review of The Challenger Sale.

Predictable Revenue

This is a powerful little book that caught me by surprise and I have to thank co-author Marylou Tyler for sending it to me, as I am confident that it will have an impact on my own sales results in 2012.

This book is for sales VPs' or operations executives responsible for growing sales revenue.
If you are in B2B sales and your team generates inbound leads, there is a system in this book that will help you generate new business by systematically mining your cold leads far more effectively than through cold calling new prospects.

What's really exciting is that you can begin to explore this method with just one person and build it as you prove to yourself and your management team that it works.

The approach was pioneered at Salesforce.com by Aaron Ross and has been implemented very successfully at fast growing companies like HubSpot and many others. When I saw HubSpot's VP Sales, Mark Roberge endorse Predictable Revenue on YouTube, I took notice and so should you.

Conversations that Win the Complex Sale

This book was written by a competitor of mine Tim Riesterer and co-writer Erik Peterson and I recommend it for both marketing and sales professionals wanting to differentiate their sales conversations and make more impact in sales calls.

This is Tim's second book and like his first is themed around creating messaging that drives effective sales conversations in B2B selling. I like this book for the technique and integration of well researched ideas like visual storytelling, the hero's journey, leading with a distinct point of view, creating tension and contrast.

In November and December this year as a certified affiliate of WhiteboardSelling, I completed six WhiteboardSelling Enablement Symposia on three continents. I wanted to share thoughts and the lessons learned from this immersion in different cultures and the general applicability of the WhiteboardSelling development philosophy and Enablement methods.
I ran WhiteboardSelling Enablement events in Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, Cologne in Germany and here in Silicon Valley CA. The smallest group was about 25 and the largest was about 90 people.

In every case, the WhiteboardSelling Enablement method was very well received and sales and support people had learned and could tell their story after this half day session.

To illustrate how well this enablement method works, a new hire Pitney Bowes product manager who participated the WhiteboardSelling Symposium in Melbourne, gave a great Whiteboard demonstration to lead off the first session the very next day in Sydney. Our executive sponsors were well pleased with the training outcomes in every case.

Whiteboard Selling Insights

1. No Whiteboard survives contact with the field 

No matter how smart the development team is that created the whiteboard story, there is always a new perspective, relevant insight or an anecdote from the sales team that we learn at the Symposium that will enrich the whiteboard story.
For this reason we like to hold a feedback session immediately following the enablement symposium to capture suggestions to improve the whiteboard. We have added an additional echo-back into our Admarco best-practices whiteboard development process to incorporate changes.

 

2. No Whiteboard Survives contact with the customer

In the same way that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, no Whiteboard story survives contact with the customer and salespeople need to know the whiteboard so they can give it in any order and develop the customer conversation.

A comment we ofter hear during the symposium is that the Whiteboard script is too prescriptive. We want participants to learn how to draw the whiteboard and tell their story and recommend the following;-

• to follow the script initially, 
• to get to know the script (we take a lot of time to figure out the best way to capture value creation), 
• then to forget the script once they have internalized it and become competent in telling the story.

The WhiteboardSelling Symposium uses active learning methods in an environment that is an artificial, low threat way of getting salespeople out of their comfort zone to learn and practice telling their story. 

In real life the customer is going to say and do things that are unexpected and for this reason we suggest that salespeople practice the whiteboard and that their sales managers have them present on a weekly basis for the month following the Symposium to master the whiteboard.

 

3. You don't have to start at the start and you don't have to finish the Whiteboard

PowerPoint is a linear method of presenting that was designed to make it easy for the presenter to create and give presentations. Most PowerPoint sales presentations are by their nature fixed in structure and focused on the supplier and their products. The WhiteboardSelling Enablement method is a rapid way to capture and enable salespeople to know and tell their story. 

In every Symposium we see individuals exercising creativity in telling their story...there is only one story, but you can tell it a thousand different ways.

• We coach salespeople to follow the buyer in conversation and let the whiteboard story unfold naturally from that dialog.
• Don't sweat if you don't finish, you may only cover half of your story in the time allotted and still achieve your meeting goal. 
• Once you know the Whiteboard, you may not even have to do a whiteboard at all....just engage the buyer in conversation and stay in the moment. 
   

4. Group participants by local language in the Symposium 

When faced with an International multi-lingual audience in the training environment, we recommend grouping tables of 6 by native language.

The WhiteboardSelling Enablement Symposium may push individuals beyond their comfort-zone into the panic zone in the first round of presentations and having them present in their native language will reduce the stress of having to translate the whiteboard while trying to learn it.

5. Get the red stuff out and on the board 

I have found whiteboarding to be a very natural way of engaging buyers. Compared to PowerPoint there is a much more natural flow in the conversation. The use of color plays an important part of the whiteboard development and WhiteboardSelling uses the following convention;
Black    = Current state - the "as is"
Red      = Challenges and problems with the current situation
Green   = Future state - "as it could be"
Blue      = Proof points, next steps.

Salespeople should encourage buyers to talk about their challenges once rapport and trust are established and capture those challenges in red on the whiteboard.

Getting the problems out and in red on the whiteboard enables the conversation to focus on the issues that are important to the buyer and to have your capabilities unfold naturally in conversation.

6. What if it's not Going Well 

We have all been in situations where for some reason the meeting is not going well and the buyer is not engaging in the conversation. I often get asked what to do in this situation. My advice is to bail-out.

You could ask the buyer, "I get the feeling that now is not a good time for this conversation.....would you prefer that we reconvened at another time or with another group?". It may save you and the buyer time and if the buyer really is interested, they may re-engage.

These are my top 5 sales and marketing performance blogs from 2011 in order of popularity. I also want to extend holiday greetings to all of my connections and friends in the industry on the last working day before Christmas.

Relocating back to California has been a great move for me and my family and we look forward to a promising 2012.

A Guide to Engaging Sales Presentations - Do not use PowerPoint

Thoughts on Powerpoint usage in sales presentations, following Edward Tufte's 1 day course, "Presenting Data and Information" in Los Angeles on 9 Feb.

Avoid these 5 Pitfalls for effective Whiteboard Sales Presentations

In making great whiteboard presentations, there a few things to avoid. Get them right and you will be very successful.

Selling from Home - Here's an Updated Sales Communications Setup 

If you are in sales or consulting, live in the USA or Canada and work from home, the following advice on home telecommunications could worth a read.

Time to Bring Outside Sales Inside - A Guide to Virtual Selling

The Internet is quickly eliminating the need for in-person selling in favor of virtual or inside sales. A 5-step guide to inside sales performance.

Product Training Doesn't Work- Get Sales to DO Product Training

Article discussing the old way of product training vs the new way of product training. The new way gets sales people to DO the product training. 

 

What Price or Value was your last Sales Call?

Would your prospect have paid you for the value they received from meeting with you or one of your sales executives on your last call with them? 

This is a vexing question and it's one of many vexing questions that have been on my mind since I read the "Challenger Sale".  It's a question that should be keeping B2B sales enablement professionals, sales managers and sales professionals up at night.

This question is vital in a World where buyers can find everything they need to know about your products and services without having to speak to you.

On your last call, did you bring the gift of knowledge and insight? Did you educate the buyer on an industry issue or sub-optimal condition that you are aware of because of your domain expertise, view of the market, knowledge of their company and your unique understanding of how your capabilities can create value?

Alternatively, would the buyer have invoiced you for 40 minutes of their time that they felt you robbed from them on your last sales call because you occupied their time, but failed to bring any value?

I will introduce a couple of related concepts to begin to address the value of the sales call question.

Challenger Selling is not new to Top Tier Consultants

The Challenger Sales type has been identified as the most effective in selling complex B2B products and services. When we examine the attributes of "The Challenger" and what they are doing in more depth, we see behaviors and methods that are currently employed by successful consultants in tier 1 consulting firms.

What the Challenger is doing differently is that they are initiating a buying process by engaging in the identification and mentoring part of the IMPACT buying process.

IMPACT Universal Buying Process

Top tier consultants and "Challengers" are creating value with the leadership in the prospective organization by bringing a point of view to the table and an opportunity into focus....while making the buyer aware of the risks in their approach vs. alternatives. 

Value Created Sales Engagement

The 5 Sales Profiles

Please answer the following questions so that you can decide if you want to invest the next few minutes to read this article. 
1. How important is clarity in messaging your value proposition? 
2. How would you rate the clarity of your message on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is "opaque" and 10 is "crystal clear"?  

Messaging Clarity Analysis

Green Zone

If your answer to question 1. is extremely important and the answer to question 2. is better than 7/10 you are in a fairly exclusive club and may be familiar with many of the concepts in this article. 

Orange Zone

This is where we encounter most opportunity; sales and marketing leaders recognize the importance of clarity in their Website messaging to drive inbound leads and high value sales conversations; and that there is room for improvement and they want to do something about it.

Red Zone

I have met and worked with marketers in the red zone. They recognize that messaging is important and that they have a lot of work to do...or they are mistaken about the relative importance of clarity in their message and need to be shown how an improvement in messaging clarity can impact their business.

White Zone

I would expect to encounter very few marketers in the white zones; they view their message as unimportant, but crystal clear; or that it's super-important and completely vague. If the latter describes you then please request a messaging assessment and we can discuss an approach to urgently correct the situation.

Dead Zone

It's hard to imagine meeting a B2B marketer in the bottom left box. They have low expectations for their marketing messaging and have failed to achieve them.

Disconnected Branding

I met the CEO of an early stage company last week, who wanted outside help with branding; creating mission statements, articulating a vision and to position their new mobile product in the market.

What I found unusual about their approach was that the team were not interested in connecting this positioning message to the daily conversations of salespeople...."this is something we'll worry about in future".  Meanwhile the sales team will struggle to translate the output the new top-down message and PowerPoint presentation into daily sales conversations with prospects and the company will have failed to capitalize on a golden opportunity.

This situation is prevalent in early stage companies and is one of the principal causes of death for emerging technology companies with killer products.

Bottom-up beats top-down B2B Brand Messaging

I have been involved in more than 40 B2B sales and marketing messaging projects to date that have varied from extremely complex, taking many weeks, involving multiple technologies, through to whiteboard storytelling where product value propositions are more focused and easier to derive.

It seems obvious to me that sales and marketing should be using the same messaging and that everyone in the company is saying the same thing, whether in print or in person...that is why we have developed a bottom-up messaging methodology that starts with buyer needs and flows through the website to the conversations sales people have with clients.

One clear message that everyone knows back to front, from the CEO to the office administrator to the least outgoing engineer will help drive the company forward in the following ways; 

• generate inbound leads, 
• drive sales conversation that grow sales, 
• recruit new hires, 
• communicate value with potential partners and suppliers,
• communicate your value to potential acquirers, investors and the board

Connect your Value Proposition to Sales Conversations

The Visual Confection below contains a lot of information and can convey a complete understanding with minimal explanation. This is our own visual value proposition. We have integrated the following ideas, tools and methods to produce results for our clients. As you look at this series of images, think of how you could represent your own capabilities and value proposition in pictures.

Moving the Needle to Create Sustainable Sales Improvement 

Most sales training efforts fail to produce real value (dotted red line), whereas the goal is to move the whole quota distribution curve to the right...green curve. This is our mission.

Four Buying Cultures

There are only four buying cultures that govern the point of sales engagement in the buying process. The closer to the start of the buying process, the higher the value in the relationship and higher profit potential.